Simply Unacceptable: Public Schools Requiring Teachers to Wear "Gay and Lesbian Coming Out Day" support Ribbons

Well, yesterday (October 11, 2005) was "Gay and Lesbian Coming Out Day" in Massachusetts public schools. According to the Human Rights Campaign Foundation, "“Talk About It” will be the theme of this year’s National Coming Out Day, to be celebrated on Oct. 11, the Human Rights Campaign Foundation announced today. HRCF’s Coming Out Project is an ongoing campaign to empower gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and allied Americans to live openly and honestly about their lives. Every single time we talk about our lives as GLBT Americans, we are another step closer to equality,” said HRC President Joe Solmonese. “Each word helps build bridges that change hearts and minds — and eventually our laws.”

I know few people who believe that gays and lesbians should be denied the basic civil rights the rest of society enjoys. But many have a big problem with public schools forcing the gay agenda upon teachers and students. My friend -- who works as a "permanent substitute teacher" -- was presented with her ribbon upon reporting to school yesterday and "strongly urged" to wear it. She does not agree with the militant gay and lesbian agenda, nor does she support "encouraging the coming-out" of school kids in an oppressively MoveOn.org atmosphere wherein kids may be forced to accept such an agenda or risk being ostracized and even persecuted (yet another form of reverse discrimination). For teachers -- especially those without tenure -- failure to publicly embrace a social radical engender may mean unemployment and being blackballed within the teaching community as "politically incorrect."

Let's imagine a state policy wherein there is a designated "Military Support Day," during which all school students and faculty are required to wear an American flag pin and spend an assembly discussing how failure to support the armed forces is unacceptable and reason to be ostracized or even be fired. The ACLU would hit that school so fast and hard it would leave skid marks on the street and the concussion would be heard for 50 miles. How about a "Pro-Life Support Day" during which all are required to wear tiny fetus pins and attend an assembly in which those who support abortion are excoriated and called "damned baby killers"?

Gay and Lesbian Student Coming-out Day as public policy is simply wrong and yet one more example of a political Left that is still taking its marching orders from greying ponytailed professors, Starbucks Marxists, and the pinch-mouthed bigots who hide their intolerance under the umbrella of "diversity."